ABSTRACT
Amsterdam has many lively spots, including Leidseplein, Rembrandtplein, and an area that locals call de Wallen. Foreigners know it as the Red Light District. The sex trade gives this area its name but it is also a hot spot to procure drugs, having been called everything from a “drug paradise” to “Mecca” (Grapendaal, Leuw, and Nelen, 1995: 82). This chapter uses crime script analysis to address three questions: (1) What are the general actions involved in drug dealing? (2) How does street dealing in Amsterdam's Red Light District unfold? (3) What opportunities does this afford prevention oriented formal control? In what follows, we first situate the offense by providing background on drug policy and law enforcement practice in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Then the orienting perspectives—opportunity theory, rational choice, and crime script analysis—are reviewed (Cohen and Felson, 1979; Cornish, 1994). This is followed by a description of our method, namely a mixed-method study of active drug dealers. That information is used to determine and describe which steps are involved in each drug sale. The chapter concludes by suggesting preventative intervention points in that process.
